No one hurt in Mexicali Border Cafe fire on Cortez Road

Neither officials with the Bradenton Fire Department nor the staff at Mexicali Border Cafe immediately could confirm what caused materials to burst into flames in a back room in the restaurant shortly before 6 p.m. Sunday.

“We could smell the fire,” said bartender Mike Galloway, who, along with the restaurant’s shift manager, Joe, calmly called 911, got the restaurant staff and all the patrons having dinner to all leave, then gathered some extinguishers to try to put the fire out themselves.

“I could see flames coming from the back room,” Galloway added.

Multiple units from the Bradenton Fire Department responded to the call at 5502 Cortez Road W. and soon contained the blaze while focusing their attention on the roof in the outside porch area, pulling down debris. A blackened area could clearly be seen in the porch roof.

An unidentified fire official, who could not give any details concerning damage or cause, was able to confirm that no one was hurt in the blaze.

Restaurant manager Gail Gee, who was not working when the fire broke out, came to the scene and said that she could only speculate that the fire started in the roof in the outside porch area.

“We had some roof work done yesterday,” Gee said. “We had a new roof put on, and they pulled the old roof off, so it might be something to do with the roofers that were here.”

Gee credited Galloway and the manager everyone knows simply as “Joe,” for their calm leadership.

“They both got everyone out,” Gee said.

Gee said she hoped the restaurant staff can clean things up Monday and be open back up in a couple of days.

Ian and Marilynn Robb, who dine at Mexicali nearly every Sunday night and always order a Mexican tostada, were stunned to pull up and see the fire engines.

“We were just going to split a tostada,” Marilynn Robb said. “They have the most wonderful tostada. It’s out favorite thing to do. It’s so big we have to split one.”

This story was originally published October 1, 2017 at 8:20 PM with the headline "No one hurt in Mexicali Border Cafe fire on Cortez Road."